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Thursday, 3 September 2015

Pants for Ellowyne - and ponderings on fabric choice.

I've moved back to Ell because I do miss sewing for these slightly larger dollies.

The pants pattern is one I drafted a long old time ago, but haven't used it much due to the amount of tweaking it needed. So today I sat and made a toile, put it on the doll inside out, made lots of mess all over it with vanishing ink, and tweaked the pants into a nice shape.

These will be straight leg pants, followed by a flared version. Later I'll do some baggier cargo pants, and now I have the basic pattern right I can design from here.

I've used quilters-weight cotton here. It's lovely fabric, but lightweight denims and needlecord are a lot more "forgiving" fabrics. It's very hard to get every little wrinkle out of pants made from this slightly "crisp" fabric, the softness and slight thickness of denim, cord, or even flannelette (brushed cotton) means the pants will always hang better in small scale.

Experimenting with cutting out your pattern pieces on the bias of the fabric will change the drape (such as it is) too.

The fabrics you choose for a dolly garment will really make a difference to your project. So basically if you can get the pattern to look right in a slightly crisper fabric like this - you can be preeetty sure it will look great in (for example) soft shirt-weight denim.

Upcycled (very clean) denim shirts and dresses are ideal for dolly pants and jeans. They've been made soft by laundering over time. I always launder my fabric finds from charity shops, it pays to use a little fabric conditioner too. Not only will your dolly smell divine, the finished garment will have that little extra softness.